CRM: Software – Hard info

How customer relationship management software is helping firms win a larger
share of the customer
In a market characterized by increasingly tight competition, every dollar from every client or customer counts. While the contact management boom of the 1980s and 1990s was all about winning a larger share of the market, customer relationship management (CRM) is all about winning a larger share of the customer.
Contact managers such as ACT!, Goldmine and Telemagic allowed salespeople to use the power of their personal computers to track and manage ongoing conversations with and mailings to their prospects to help build a relationship.
CRM starts with the core functions of contact management and provides tools for providing ongoing service. Information that results from the business relationship – information which in most cases is not in a readily usable form – can be integrated with the contact list, providing a fuller understanding of what customers want and need and when they need it.
And that, according to a Cedarburg-based manufacturer of CRM software, makes for a stronger relationship and a higher share-of-customer.
Margaret Gerstenkorn, public relations director for Oncontact Software, said the 50-person firm concentrates on providing a package to help manufacturers and service businesses realize that understanding their current customers can be as important as finding new ones.
“One of the driving forces behind CRM is competition,” Gerstenkorn said. “People more and more are getting choosy. They are getting very savvy as to the scope of product offerings that are out there – and are much more likely to pit suppliers against each other.”
CRM, according to Gerstenkorn, allows you to zero in on your customers, understand them and position yourself as a better alternative than your competitors.
“One of the ways that our application helps you is by allowing you to develop a complete profile of your customers,” Gerstenkorn said. “For instance, in our own customer base, one of our customers may be assigned to a variety of lists. We can see that this customer gets an invitation to our golf invitational every year. We can see this customer is interested in buying software – or hardware. Or maybe, if I am with an office supply company, I could see which are interested in copiers and which are interested in pens and pencils.”
The heart of the Oncontact’s offering, according to Gerstenkorn, is a sophisticated contact management system – similar to ACT!, Goldmine and other popular programs. Users can then use standard program extensions to add functionality – including integration with standard accounting packages.
“We do have a natural integration with accounting programs like Great Plains/Solomon; and a lot of our customers do that and can pipe that information right into the system,” Gerstenkorn said. “You can generate sales orders on the fly and view sales history. They can do that without integrating, but they will have to punch that in all manually. If they are integrating, it will all happen seamlessly.”
By tracking ongoing interaction with customers, “what you can do is get everyone company-wide recording every single interaction they have with that customer,” Gerstenkorn said. “That creates a full history of the relationship. Everyone is on the exact same page. Everyone can see what each other has done.”
Even at the level of standard contact management, Gerstenkorn said, the program outperforms commercially available programs because it is infinitely scalable.
“One of the problems with programs like ACT! is that the sharing capabilities are limited,” Gerstenkorn said. “It is a basic flat file database – you have very flat rows of data. Ours runs on a relational database like a Microsoft SQL server. That also grants a lot of access of information on the road. You don’t have to be in the office to access the system.”
According to Gerstenkorn, program users can automate existing sales and service practices – or create new ones.
“You can outline a sales opportunity, set sales objectives and goals – you can create an organizational hierarchy of your customer organizations so you can see the power structure within their companies. There is competitive analysis capability – so if you know you are dealing with a specific competitor on a sales deal, you can plot what you are up against.”
Relational
database important
A key strength of a system like Oncontact, according to Gerstenkorn, is the flexibility that comes from a fully relational database.
“There are limitations presented by contact management systems,” Gerstenkorn said. “You run into limits in storing the information and how much a system like that can actually handle. When you overload ACT!, Goldmine or ACCESS, they just shut down. The capacity of our application is based entirely on the server. Our application can store an unlimited amount of information depending on the storage capacity you have.”
The capabilities of a relational database also help Oncontact users use the information they accumulate to better understand their customers.
“And then there is the ability to make sense of the information once you store it,” Gerstenkorn said. “We have very complex data analysis tools that allow you to slice and dice the information the way you want to see it. Importing information is very easy with our system – as are upgrades.”
What does it cost?
While many customer relationship management systems are targeted to very large companies, Oncontact focuses on what is called the mid-level market, and can be a good solution for as few as a couple handfuls of users. The cost of the system is based on the number of users, according to Gerstenkorn.
“We do require a relational database – SQL or Oracle, IBM or Sybase,” Gerstenkorn said. “In addition to that, for 10 people, a company would pay $1,495 per user as a one-time fee – plus an 18% annual maintenance fee.”
The cost of the system does not increase depending on the level of functionality, according to Gerstenkorn.
“The price range does not vary,” Gerstenkorn said. “It is sold as a package solution. You get all the functionality – sales, marketing and customer service and account management – with no additional fees.”
While the system is intuitive and easy to use, Gerstenkorn said training helps speed up the return on investment as users get up to speed faster.
“Our software is very easy to use,” Gerstenkorn said. “It has a very strong Windows look and feel. Anyone familiar with Microsoft will be right at home. While the program is very well put together and easy to understand, we do recommend all users go through training. There is training for basic users and for system administrators – which is obviously more high-level. We also offer computer-based training.”
Many competing CRM packages, according to Gerstenkorn, are more expensive when it comes to services that must be purchased along with the software.
“That is a problem with a lot of our larger competitors,” Gerstenkorn said. “For every dollar you spend in software, you will have to spend $5, $6 or even $7 for services. In our case, It ends up being about $1 for every $1.”
Dec. 7, 2001 Small Business Times, Milwaukee